HealthBridge ordered to reinstate strikers

Updated 11:00 pm, Thursday, January 31, 2013

DANBURY -- Lana Metti never figured she would spend her winter days outside, staying warm by sitting next to an oil barrel doing duty as a makeshift wood stove.

"You see them in the 1920s," Metti said Thursday.

Metti and her 150 co-workers at Danbury Health Care Center depend on the stove as they maintain their seven-month strike against the center.

"I didn't think it would take this long," said Nadine Ford, poking the coals at the bottom of the barrel with a stick. "But we've been fighting and fighting and fighting."

On Thursday, strikers had reason for hope.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled in the union's favor Wednesday, reinstating an injunction U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny issued in December against HealthBridge, owner of the center.

As part of the injunction, HealthBridge was ordered to give the workers their old jobs back under the terms of their old contract.

Deborah Chernoff, spokeswoman for 1199, said Thursday that the workers would meet Friday to learn when they will return to work.

"We're happy," said Thresiamma Josi, of Danbury, one of the strikers. "But we'll be happier when we get the date when we go back to work."

Chernoff said Thursday that the company's legal options are limited. It could appeal the three-judge panel's decision to the full court of appeals. But Chatigny's injunction would stay in effect while that appeal went forward.